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There's something about a grandmother's cooking. It's almost as if God designed them to know how to make some of the tastiest food. One of my all-time favorites is a dish that my Nana makes for me on my birthday. Her original recipe of homemade chicken spaghetti.
If you've never heard of it, click here and bless your heart with The Pioneer Woman's take on it. Just thinking about it makes me gain calories.
Over the years, people have attempted to recreate it. Adding their own spin to it. But none of them have come close to the taste that Nana's original recipe makes.
Then one day in 2022, I started to think about that chicken spaghetti in a profound way.
I remember thinking, "if I changed the ingredients in the original recipe, then it would not longer be original."
It would now be my version of it.
(Que the the light bulb moment!)
It hit me. When an original recipe is altered whether by adding or removing certain ingredients, it becomes a new recipe. It is no longer the same. It's different. A copy.
Simple logic. But then I thought about it deeper than the layers of cheese baked in it.
Changing the ingredients to an original recipe is the same thing that is happening - and has happened for thousands of years - to the church that Jesus built on the Day of Pentecost. Jesus established His church (or "original recipe" for analogy's sake). Then people started "adding, removing, and replacing the ingredients".
When you compare the New Testament church to the churches we see today, majority are nothing like the only one we read about in our Bible. They worship different. The spiritual roles in the church are different. The partaking of the Lord's Supper is different. The preaching is different. The giving is different. The way people became Christians is different. Why?
Because someone came along and decided to make their own spin on it. Their own recipe. Their version of the original. But you see, once you go down that path, it's no longer Jesus you are following - but your own desires.
Is it possible to be in the one original church that Jesus established? A million times yes.
We are warned over and over again by the Holy Spirit through the scriptures to keep our eyes open for false teachers who would try and change the Gospel. That these false teachers would bring a different Gospel, as if there is another. We are warned to run from anyone trying to present a different doctrine, a different teaching, than what we have from God.
We are told that we should not be divided, that we are one body.
Shouldn't that alarm us? Even thousands of years back then, after the church was established, we see people trying to divide up. To carry another name other than Jesus'. What happened to them? They were corrected and pointed back to the original Way. To follow Jesus and His truth.
Jesus tells us that if we love Him, that if we are His friend, then we will do what He says and commands us to do.
If we truly love Him, are we willing to give up "copies of the original recipe"?
If we truly love Him, will we give up "our own version of the original recipe"?
If we truly love Him, why would we want anything more than the original recipe?
Who knew a grandmother's cooking could lead to a deep talk about Jesus and His one bride.
If you'd like to know more about this topic, please read this article:
"I Want to Be Saved Just Like They Were in Acts" by House to House, Heart to Heart (Christian Magazine)